A variety of techniques about flying head-sliders, which are used in disc driving devices such as a magnetic disc driving device, have been proposed. Particularly in these years, devices which employ the flying head-slider have been downsized, and densities of recording media have become higher, so that a magnetic head needs to be closer to the recording media. This environment requires the flying head-slider to have a fly height as low as several tens of nano-meter over a recording medium.
Therefore, an external shock onto a disc driving device will cause the head slider to collide against the recording medium, and damages the medium magnetically or mechanically, so that the medium cannot be used anymore for recording or reproducing data. Further, a mobile information apparatus have recently gained popularity, so that the disc driving device mounted in such an apparatus needs to be portable. The portable disc driving device is thus subject to being dropped.
Amid the foregoing problems, various studies have been made on a surface-shape (hereinafter referred to as an air bearing surface), which is to be faced to a recording medium, of a highly shock resistant flying head-slider.
For instance in a conventional case, when an inertia force along the direction of moving away from the recording medium is applied to the head slider, the head slider moves so away from the medium that an elastic force (a restoring force to an original status from a bent status) of a suspension spring, which tries to retain the head slider, acts on the head slider to return toward the medium. The head slider, in the end, possibly collides against the medium, thereby damaging the medium magnetically or mechanically. In order to overcome this problem, a negative pressure generating section is prepared on the air bearing surface of the flying head-slider. The negative pressure generating section is located in the vicinity of a geometric center of the head slider, and yet, nearer to an air inflow side from the geometric center. This structure prevents the head slider from colliding against the medium. This is disclosed in the following non-patent document 1: “Slider and HGA designs for both smooth load/unload operation and high shock resistance” written by Ni. Sheng et al, in the prepared text for the 2002 IEEE international Magnetics Conference held in Netherland, RAI Congress Center, April 28–May 2, AD11.
However, the foregoing conventional flying head-slider has a shock-resistance G so low as approx. 80 (g), where 1 (g)=9.8 (m/s), that it is not practically effective. In the case of a portable information apparatus including a magnetic disc driving device, the device is recently required to have as much as several hundreds of G. There have been no specific study about a structure of a flying head-slider that could achieve such a high shock-resistance.